THEATER REVIEW

THEATER REVIEW; More Ghosts Than Originally Planned

By BEN BRANTLEY

Published: December 19, 2003

The ghosts are out in force for ''Rose's Dilemma,'' the transparent comedy by Neil Simon that opened last night at the Manhattan Theater Club. While ectoplasm might seem appropriate for a show about a woman's sexually active relationship with the specter of her dead lover, ''Rose's Dilemma'' is haunted in ways that its creators surely never dreamed of.

There is, most conspicuously, the nagging phantom of the Star Who Isn't There. That's Mary Tyler Moore, who was originally cast for the New York premiere of the latest offering by the prolific Mr. Simon. Ms. Moore left the play only two weeks before it opened, reportedly after being criticized by Mr. Simon for not knowing her lines. She has been replaced by her courageous, artificial-seeming understudy, Patricia Hodges. But Ms. Moore's spirit still lingers, exhaling what sounds like a sigh of relief.

The awareness of Ms. Moore's departure, in turn, summons spooky memories of other television actresses who never made it to opening night in New York this season: Jasmine Guy, who was to have appeared in ''The Violet Hour,'' another ill-starred venture from the Manhattan Theater Club; Farrah Fawcett in ''Bobbi Boland''; and Jenna Elfman in the replacement cast of ''Nine.'' Think of it -- with a thundering organ chord -- as the curse of the prime-time players.

But even theatergoers who don't read the showbiz trades will sense an aura of unease hovering over this production, which is directed by Lynne Meadow. The ghosts of themes from other, more robust Simon plays are much in evidence here, from the problems of romance for those stranded by lovers' deaths (''Chapter Two,'' ''Jake's Women'') to the pairing of sardonic, difficult women with impressionable girls who must learn to stand up for themselves (''The Gingerbread Lady,'' the Pulitzer Prize-winning ''Lost in Yonkers'').

Yet the noisiest ghost of all, believe it or not, is that of the imperious dramatist Lillian Hellman, who, since her death in 1984, has become a reliable leading lady in plays written by other people. The stars Zoe Caldwell (''Lillian''), Linda Lavin (''Cakewalk'') and, just last year, Swoosie Kurtz (''Imaginary Friends'') have all taken turns portraying a woman so self-styled that she seemed tailor-made for impersonation.

Now there is Ms. Hodges as Rose. As she and other characters tell us, Rose is a playwright whose loyalty was famously questioned by the United States government, a woman who plays fast and loose with facts and the paramour of ''an alcoholic genius'' who made literary art out of the detective story (i.e., Dashiell Hammett). Say what you like, but it's pretty clear that Rose by any other name is Lillian.

Ms. Hodges, who was endorsed by Mr. Simon as Ms. Moore's replacement, is an attractive ash blonde with a spectacular lean figure. You can see why the ghost of Walsh McLaren (a dapper, understated John Cullum), the Hammett figure, drools for her even beyond the grave. But she is not a natural monster, which would be a compliment under most circumstances but is definitely not in this case.

Making big, clean-cut gestures that bring to mind someone signaling an airplane by semaphore, Ms. Hodges works hard to fill the contours of an outsize personality. But she is more comfortable being lip-bitingly sentimental in a soft and fuzzy voice.

Her Rose, in other words, lacks thorns. Weighed down by the cuteness of Mr. Simon's dialogue, and especially by a heartwarming mea culpa scene in the second act, Ms. Hodges delivers a cuddly, squishy Lillian Hellman, a stuffed dragon who wouldn't even scare a child, much less the likes of Mary McCarthy and Norman Mailer.

Like the current romantic film hit ''Something's Gotta Give,'' which also focuses on a formidable female playwright, ''Rose's Dilemma'' is set in an expensive, sun-washed beach house in the Hamptons. (The airy, conventionally tasteful set is by Thomas Lynch, with costumes to match by William Ivey Long.) There the title character has gabfests and conjugal reunions with the spectral Walsh, while Arlene (Geneva Carr), her endlessly accommodating young protégée, frets over Rose's straitened finances.

Walsh the ghost, whom Rose admits is more or less her own creation, proposes that she publish an unfinished Walsh McLaren manuscript with the help of a seedy, needy young novelist named Gavin Clancy (David Aaron Baker). Gavin and Arlene prove that you don't have to be old or dead to sling Neil Simon-style zingers as a means of foreplay.

Like many of Mr. Simon's plays in the more than two decades since ''Chapter Two,'' ''Rose's Dilemma'' is about overcoming the past to live in the present. ''Sometimes you have to give up what you love,'' as Rose puts it, in needlework-sampler style. Yet under Ms. Meadow's direction, not to mention what must have been exceptionally strained circumstances backstage, the cast members never seem terribly alive. They perform with polite timidity, as if afraid that their characters might break if fully embraced.

Not that Mr. Simon's script inspires easy spontaneity. Here is a typical exchange between Rose and Walsh: ''Do you remember being alive?'' ''Yes, the food tasted better then.'' Here is Rose putting Walsh in his place: ''To be quite frank, sex with a dead man isn't half as good as I was led to believe.''

At one point Rose exclaims to Walsh, ''I love it when you spit out the dialogue like fireworks.'' That line, for the record, is the play's most extreme example of wishful thinking.

Perhaps with a less fraught production history, ''Rose's Dilemma'' might have emerged as mildly pleasant canned entertainment. It is kind of reassuring, in any case, that in his mid-70's Mr. Simon is still producing a brand of comedy that takes the sting out of mortal fears. Even confronting the afterlife, his characters keep cracking wise, prepared to meet eternity via a passage to the light that, as Walsh tells Rose, looks a lot like the Lincoln Tunnel.

Photos: John Cullum and Patricia Hodges in the Manhattan Theater Club production of ''Rose's Dilemma,'' by Neil Simon. (Photo by Sara Krulwich/The New York Times)(pg. E32); John Cullum and Patricia Hodges in the Neil Simon play ''Rose's Dilemma.'' (Photo by Sara Krulwich/The New York Times)(pg. E1)